New Beginnings moves ahead with construction Excerpt taken from Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal

By Sandi P. Beason


TUPELO - New Beginnings got a slow start on the construction of its new office, but the pace has quickened.

"We've finished the decking for the storage area," said Mike Fletcher, a volunteer from the Fox Cities United Pentecostal Church in the Green Bay, Wis., area. "We framed the walls. We're getting ready for the next crew to come in."

Fletcher's group began working on the building Monday. Tom Velie, director of New Beginnings Christian adoption agency, said the group put up 1,000 studs in one day.

"All that was there on Monday morning was piles of wood," Velie said. "We had delays because of the weather, in the foundation work, but ... it seems like we're moving along well. We're excited about it."

The building, off Cliff Gookin Boulevard, will be the offices for New Beginnings and will provide a confidential setting to work with birth mothers, the pregnant women who come to the agency wishing to put their children up for adoption.

"We also need more space because now we're doing international work - in Poland, China, Guatemala and the Ukraine," Velie said. "That will require more staff as that expands. We expect it to (expand) pretty quickly."

To help pay the $400,000 building cost, the agency will lease a third of the building to Southern Patient Care, a medical wholesaler. New Beginnings' current office, on East Main Street, is for sale, and that, too, will be used to pay the mortgage.

Mark McLernon, a volunteer from Wisconsin, said the pastor of his church, who is on the board of New Beginnings, asked his congregation to help.

For more information or to donate to New Beginnings, call 842-6752, or visit www.newbeginningsadoptions.com

For more information on this article, contact Sandi P. Beason at 678-1598 or sandi.pullen@djournal.com

Appeared originally in the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, 3/10/2006 8:00:00 AM, section A , page 2